


Resuscitate Me, Baby

by princessofmind



Series: Oceanic Acculturation [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's only one thing that humans really have right about their underwater brethren, and that would be that they enjoy capturing land dwellers. Not for the nefarious, flesh-eating sort of plots, but as a right of passage almost. One must at least attempt to snatch one of those beach-going humans if one is ever going to be seen as a respectable adult in society. Most of the youngsters come back clutching a bikini top and giggling hysterically (and they wonder where their lost articles of clothing go), but the truly fortunate actually get their hands on someone.</p><p>And that is exactly what our protagonist (or antagonist) is doing right this very minute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I originally wrote for the Homestuck kink meme, for a prompt that asked for merman!Eridan kidnapping Sollux for one reason or another. It was originally intended to be a short little fill, but the world building and the characters ran away from me at breakneck speed. This is a much more polished, edited, and in some cases expanded version than the one posted on the kink meme. I love the characters so much that you can count on more works from this universe to come.

Humans have the most hilariously wrong ideas about what sea dwellers look like.

A lot of them think that your kind can only be female, and swim around singing show tunes in brightly colored seashell bras. In fact, just like the stupid humans, sea dwellers are both male and female, and the term "mermaid" has become quite the vulgar slang term, so it would be very nice if people would stop calling the respectable young ladies that. As far as the "seashell bras go", no such thing exists. Sure, the captured humans have brought some idea of what a bra is, but when you're in the water, your breasts aren't very well contained no matter what you do, so why bother? Sea dwellers wear clothing pretty darn close to what humans wear, only more suited for all-day ocean wear.

They also have this idea that you have one big fish tail instead of legs, which is horribly unpractical. How on earth would you get around inside your palaces and homes if you didn't have legs and feet? Sure, you have gills running up your torso, and your fingers and toes are webbed, but really, _one giant fin_? No, you're much higher on the evolutionary food chain than that.

There's only one thing that humans really have right about their underwater brethren, and that would be that they enjoy capturing land dwellers. Not for a nefarious, flesh-eating motive, but almost as a right of passage. One must at least attempt to snatch one of those beach-going humans if one is ever going to be seen as a respectable adult in society. Most of the youngsters come back clutching a bikini top and giggling hysterically (and humans wonder where their lost articles of clothing go), but the truly fortunate actually get their hands on someone.

And that is exactly what our protagonist (or antagonist) is doing right this very minute.

 **You are ERIDAN AMPORA, prince of the sea, and you're out to get your landlubber.**

As royalty, you're technically absolved from this plebeian practice of retrieving humans to prove your worth, but your goals aren't as base as that. Your engagement with a certain empress-to-be hasn't been going too hot, and what with your royalty and general grouchiness making you a shining beacon of personality, you don't have anyone to talk to about it. Hell, you don't have anyone else to talk to about anything period. You try not to think about it, since it makes you go a bit blue in the gills, but you've always been kind of a lonely little tadpole, especially when Feferi decides she's had enough of your moodiness (like today).

You tend to chalk the rest of your population's reluctance to talk to you more to your royalty and foreign origin than your poor attitude, so, with your expert reasoning, you decide the best way to remedy this would be to find a human to help you out. Sure, there are a few humans who work in the palace with their captors, but it's not the same. They're all older than you, and it doesn't _mean_ anything unless you pick them out yourself.

So you've spent the day drifting up and down the western coast of the little island humans call Midway Atoll (part of the chain of islands they refer to as Hawaii), but it's chilly, and the few humans you've seen don't come near the rocky little jetty you've decided taken watch on. It's starting to get dark out, and although you've allotted the entire evening to accomplish this task, you're getting bored, and you blow bubbles in the water out of frustration (truly a childish thing to do).

In fact, you're so caught up in your self-loathing (can you not even pick out a cod damn area that's warm enough for the humans to be out in?) and bubble blowing that you don't notice the boy until he's practically stepping on your fingers.

It's hard to tell in the dark, but he appears to be around your age, with short dark hair and a lanky frame. His land dweller clothes seem bulky and thick, and you remember that they have next to no resistance to the cold, especially if they're as skinny as this one. There's an empty plastic wrapper in his hands that at one point held bread, or at least you assume so, given by the small gaggle of seabirds that are watching him on the shore.

He's actually prettier than you thought humans were. Most of the humans you've glimpsed were haggard and a bit wrinkly, and also older looking. If it weren't for your teachers saying so, you'd insist that they all looked like that, but now you've seen differently. There just wasn't much cause for you to approach shore up till now.

The boy is watching the waves and the moon, which is well above the horizon now, making meticulous little tears in the plastic he holds, and you wonder if his skin is as clammy as your hands are. Eventually, he balls the plastic up and stuffs it inside the garment he's wearing, and for some reason, the little act warms your heart, because it wasn't just tossed out in to the ocean like you'd expected it to be (because everyone knows the humans are going to destroy the ocean with their littering and oil spills).

So you surge up out of the water, and his eyes grow wide, and you didn't realize he had funny things on his face that make you think of Fef, but you've already got your hands around his neck. Fingers claw at your face, but your skin is thicker than his, and the most he'll be able to do is raise a few purple-blue welts that will be gone within a few days. You're too busy wondering if you need to make sure he keeps those weird things shielding his eyes, and make a note to take them when he's finally unconscious.

It would be easier to move him in the water if you took him out of those heavy clothes, but it doesn't really feel right to undress him completely. It takes a few tries to get his limbs out of the thick black garment he stuffed the bread bag in to, but you discard it once he's free, along with his thick shoes and rough pants. The clothes he remains in are much more light weight (you never understood why humans wore so many damn layers), even if they left more of him open to the chill.

You easily maneuver his slight form on to your back, his arms hanging over your shoulders to hold on to when you get in to the water. With your hands occupied, it will take longer to reach the castle, especially staying above water so the stupid creature won't drown (why the humans never evolved gills you'll never understand). You hope that the human will stay unconscious long enough for you to get there; the last thing you need to do is try and incapacitate him in the middle of the damn ocean.

Kure Atoll is roughly three hours away from Midway (a little less when you're swimming unencumbered), the nearest Hawaiian island. No humans have inhabited the coral reef island since one of the Great Wars (there's been two of them, but you don't remember much about them) and has been largely undisturbed by humans for most of its lifetime. You imagine that the royals have something to do with that, and you hope that you won't have to deal with government emissaries from the humans any time soon.

Although the humans know about the coral reef that makes up the majority of the island, they don't know how thick the reef has grown, forming a pocket deep under the surface of the water consisting of rooms too small to be much more than closet space and some big enough to hold almost the entire population of undersea dwellers in the area.

There are small, hand-made buildings on the ocean floor beneath the large structure where the common folk live, the palace hanging like a jeweled bauble in the sky. The whole structure glows faintly from the bioluminescent coral that makes up the underside of the island, and the name for the establishment is Lua Mahina (which means "second moon" in the language their people spoke before adapting the new human tongue).

The largest of the rooms is located directly under the island itself, where soil had been painstakingly brought down by their ancestors to form a sort of orchard, growing bananas and cocconuts and kiwi and papaya and all number of tropical fruits. The orchard is also where the animals live (primarily sheep, but the Condesce has a small collection of rabbits that she's quite fond of), although any birds they need they simply hunt up on the island which is practically overrun with the nuisances.

The coral rooms continue underwater, and the half-in half-out level of dwelling are the chambers of the royals, which includes you. You've never had much use for your Pocket room (your chambers have only one, but a large one at that), aside from storing your books and occasionally sleeping. The only way to get to your chambers is through the main entryway, and you worry that the slightly blue-lipped human won't be able to hang on that long. It would be easier to be able to swim straight in, but when Lua Mahina was first settled, the royals realized how open the castle was, and a lot of the holes that could act as entryways were patched up using large, brilliantly colored chunks of sea glass. Your undersea bedroom has a chunk of purple glass almost as big as you are looking out over the ocean, and it still takes your breath away every time.

You adjust the human on your back before diving down, approaching the palace faster than you would usually dare, and the guards at the entrance nearest your room clutch their spears in apprehension, but you bowl past them, sliding through the hallways and knocking over a few stunned dignitaries and scraping your horns on the ceiling a few times in your hurry. The woven door to your room gives you no pause, and you practically throw the human off your back once you reach your Pocket.

"Eridan, what in the seven seas are you doing?!"

One of the people you just about tumbled over turned out to be one of Feferi's handmaidens, a green-tinted girl by the name of Kanaya. She's raking her soaking hair out of her face much like you are, scrambling up and over to where you're crouched over the human. "I got him here as fast as I could," you say defensively, but his body isn't even shivering anymore, and when you press your ear to his chest, you can neither hear a beating heart of feel his lungs move.

"He's hypothermic, he wouldn't have been able to hold his breath as long as usual when it's so cold," she's shaking the water off her as she speaks, hurrying over to the wardrobe tucked near the foot of your bed, flinging it open unceremoniously and digging for a spare blanket.

"You could ask before you start goin' through a guy's delicates," you grumble, pressing hard on the human's sternum, feeling like you were going to push right through his chest to the gloopy center, but your teachers always said you had to be firm, so you are. Your blood is cold in your veins at the thought of accidentally _drowning_ this creature you picked, and you don't allow yourself to linger on how inappropriate it is seeing you don't even know his glubbing name, pressing your lips to his blue ones, trying to get air back in to his lungs.

Suddenly you taste seawater in your mouth and his body in convulsing violently under you and you're practically thrown off, spitting off to the side and wiping your mouth on the back of your hand. The human manages to roll himself over, coughing up lungful after lungful of water, and Kanaya is pressing the blankets in to your hands. "I'll take my leave, you buffoon," she whispers, although her eyes are soft as she slips back beneath the surface.

"What the _fuckth_ going on?" the human rasps, and you take the thick woolen blanket and drape it over his shivering form, and he grabs it like it's worth millions.

"Just calm down an' catch your breath," you instruct gruffly, and his head snaps back towards you, and his eyes are the most amazing colors; sapphire blue and ruby red. His eyes are huge, framed by the most amazing damn eyelashes you've ever seen on a being, and his lips are just a little pouty albeit still blue, and wow these creatures are more attractive than you thought.

He sputters in alarm, sliding a few feet away and clutching the blanket closer, like it would offer any protection should you chose to separate his throat from the rest of his internal organs. "Hey, chill, I'm not gonna hurt you."

"I can't be any more chill," he hisses, and you're surprised for a moment that a half-drowned frozen human has the mind to be smart with you. But the corners of your lips twitch up a little, and you rock back on your heels, resting your forearms on your knees.

"Guess you're right. Sorry bout that. I'm Eridan."

He's studying you, and you're glad now that you opted to keep the tight-fitting leather pants on that you usually wear around the upper levels, because even with those on you feel decidedly naked. Aside from the decorative fins on the sides of your face and the slight curves of your horns, you don't look too different from him; your hair is even the same shade of black, although yours has a shock of purple in it.

"Thollux," he says, frowning, and repeating the name with a good deal more concentration. "Sollux. What the hell are you?"

You shrug your shoulders, watching him watch you. "I'm a sea dwweller."

Sollux's eyebrows go up, and when he smiles you can see his teeth still chattering together. "Tho you're a mermaid?"

For as high up as his eyebrows go, your drop that far down, lips curling in to a snarl. If he didn't already look half-dead, you'd throw him against the wall. Fuck cultural sensitivity. "You'd be best off not comparin' me to wwomen of loose moray-eels, and you'll getcha self killed if you say it to anyone else."

He ignores you, and the muscles in your neck are tense from how hard you're clenching your teeth. "Tho I'm underwater? How can I breathe?"

"Am I gonna hafta explain every last thing to you?" You glower, but he seems unfazed. "You're in my Pocket, in the Lua Mahina. I brought you here because I need…" here you sigh, rubbing the back of your neck and shrugging, "a friend."

His look turns a mixture of incredulous and amused, slipping one pale hand out from under the blanket to smooth his bangs out of his face. "Kidnapping thomeone to be your friend. Kind of a thtupid thing to do."

You bare your fangs, but he's already looking around the room, half-walking half-crawling over to the bed you keep. It's different from the human-style beds Fef and her parents prefer; it's a wooden frame with softened woven seaweed forming a mat suspended off the floor. Two soft grey-white blankets serve as cushioning, and a pillow stuffed with bird down sits at the head. Although it's different from what he's probably used to, the human pulls himself up in to it, keeping the blanket tight around him.

This isn't anything like you thought it would be. Your teachers and friends say that the humans are always upset, even the males, begging for their freedom and trying to convince you to let them go back to your families, but Sollux has been strangely docile (aside from insulting you and lisping all over the damn place). He's not shocked, not scared, not horrified, not…anything really.

"You realize you're not goin back, don't you?"

He looks back over his shoulder at you, his blanket-covered shoulder obscuring one eye from your sight, but the one that is visible is lidded with exhaustion, and you're pleased to see his lips are losing that blue tint. "I don't have anything to go back to," he replies.

And something about the way he says that makes your heart sink to the very bottom of your stomach, but you don't quite know why.


	2. Chapter Two

It feels like someone's watching you, and the bizarre sensation is what finally pulls you out of the clutches of sleep. The gills on the right side of your body are sore, probably largely due to sleeping on your side on the ground, and there's a weight pushing down against you that wasn't there when you finally drifted off. A clumsy grasp reveals it to be yet another of your plethora of blankets (why do you have so many of the damn things?), and when your eyes finally flutter open, you can see the only person who could have gone through your wardrobe to retrieve it.

He seems contemplative, and again you're struck by the oddity of his unwavering calm. He didn't try to strangle you in your sleep, hell, you've even got half a dozen knives of various sizes on a shelf over your desk that would have done the job nicely. But no, if it weren't for the blanket over your body and the fact that the small pile of clothes you'd set on the foot of the bed were gone, you'd swear he hadn't even moved.

"It's pretty rude to go through someone's stuff wwhile they're sleepin," you say, and your voice sounds like gravel and it makes you want to wince.

He just grins, and upon further contemplation, you realize his eyes look a bit bigger than yesterday. Probably because he had those weird things on his face (you make a note to ask what they are at a later time). "You looked pretty pitiful, thleeping on the floor and all, tho I was trying to be thoughtful. Thue me."

"I don't even knoww wwhat that means," you groan, sitting up and pulling the blankets closer around you. "You're pinker than yesterday." Although humans are usually a healthy pink, Sollux's face is a bit more flushed than that, and so is his neck and the tips of his ears, you notice.

"I think I'm running a fever," he answers, pressing a hand to his forehead, and it makes you want to roll your eyes. Dumbass human, everyone knows you can't take your own temperature by touch.

"I figured you wwould be after yesterday," you say, getting to your feet with a bit of difficulty. Once you were sure he was out like a light and not likely to rouse again, you went after Kanaya again, who apparently knew a lot more about humans than you did. Scolding you all the way, she helped you gather some warmer clothes as well as some fruit that she said would help him recover if he was unwell.

"Are thothe gillth?" he asks as you retrieve the earthenware mug filled with freshwater you'd brought down with you, as well as two of the round, orange fruits Kanaya had given you. You flutter your gills as best you can out of the water, and he clearly wasn't expecting that, so you don't even bother to hide your smirk.

"Of course they are," you say, handing him the mug first, which he takes with barely contained eagerness. "Howw the hell else could I have gotten food for you?"

He stops, the mug against his lips, suddenly weary. "Doeth that mean thith ith theawater?" You fix him with a withering look, and he arches an eyebrow in response. "Well, excuthe me, your highneth. How could you have gotten water here if you had to thwim?!"

"Magic. Just shut up and drink it." You lob one of the fruits at him, but he catches it, sipping carefully from the mug as he digs his fingers in to the orange flesh. You watch a bit curiously as he peels back the harder outer skin to reveal the fruit within, which falls neatly in to little half moons, which he then pops in to his mouth.

"What, you never theen an orange before?" he asks, sucking a bit of the juice off his fingers, and you pointedly _do not_ look as the digit disappears between his lips.

"I havve, but I'vve nevver seen one consumed," you say with a shrug, turning the fruit over in your hands. "I just eat fish." You pause. "Wwhat's wwrong wwith your wwords?"

A section of orange lands in your hair, and you successfully nail him between the eyes with the whole fruit in your hand. "What'th wrong with _yourth_?" he asks, brows furrowed in a deep scowl, but there's hurt lingering behind his eyes, and you realize that this was probably a bad road to try and turn down.

"Absolutely no-fin," you say, scowling back, and the silence that follows is less than comfortable.

He finishes the fruit and stuffs the rind in inside the blankets of your bed, and you know there's still juice in it and damn it those are your favorite blankets, and you bodily remove him from it, like an owner who just caught their pet devouring their furniture. It's harder to haul him around when he's kicking and swearing and trying to grab the fins by your face, but you manage to get him tucked under your arm none-the-less, enabling you to snatch the offending fruit peel from your bedding.

But then the fucker gets his fingers in your already irritated gills and your entire right side lights up with pain, and he's got you pinned by the time your head stops spinning. It's inelegant, him putting all his weight on your back, knees keeping your arms immobile, and a hand on one of your horns turns you to look at him.

"What'th wrong with your wordth?" he asks, accentuating every word as best he can, and those stupid things on his face have been knocked askew.

You sigh, as if very put out by all this, but you're not in a very good position, even a proud mother fucker like yourself can acknowledge that. "This isn' my first language. I learned wwhen I wwas still a kid, but I alwways had trouble with my W's an' V's. Happy?"

He studies you, and you wonder if he's going to try and tear one of your horns off, but he lets go, stands, and kind of stumbles back to the bed to lay down like the brief tussle took all his energy, which it probably did, not bothering to fish the still uneaten second orange from where it fell earlier. If it weren't for the fact it was your damn bed, you'd wish that it burst under his ass. "And I alwayth had trouble with my th'th. Happy?"

"Incandescently," you grumble, and despite the altercation, you make sure he's tucked in snugly under the blankets before you leave; you don't want the little prick to get any sicker, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone unfamilliar with the area Lua Mahina exists in for this universe, [Kure Atoll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kure_Atoll) is absolutely breathtaking, and I was smitten with the location when I was doing my research for the sea dweller kingdom to be settled. I haven't been able to properly get a design out there for what Lua Mahina looks like, since I'm not gifted in the arts, but I am in the market to find an artist who'd like to work with me on designing Lua Mahina as well as the different species of sea people. If anyone is interested, let me know in the comment section!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and please look forward to the next installment tomorrow evening!


	3. Chapter Three

You are SOLLUX CAPTOR and you are incredibly bored.

It's hard to remember exactly how many days have passed, but from the waxing and waning luminescence of the room you're in, you can guess it's been about a week. You spent the first two days sleeping off your cold and eating so many oranges that if you even so much as think about the color you're pretty sure you'll puke. Luckily, Eridan has started bringing you fish and the occasional fowl with your fruits, and you like to tease him about how "obviously concerned" he is about your health, seeing how he insists you finish all the fruit no matter what. He's also brought you a few strange food items, jellies and dried, salted fruit that you didn't think you'd enjoy, but end up devouring. It's not the overwhelmingly sweet deserts you're used to from home, but it's a nice gesture at least.

Strangely, though, you've never seen Eridan eat anything. Surely he does, whenever he goes wherever he spends the day, but never in front of you. You brought it up once, and he just shrugged and told you that his eating habits are unpalatable to most of his own species, so he figured you'd find it just as disgusting. Unless he gnaws on baby fish people for breakfast, you don't really know what would be so unpalatable, but it's not something you really feel like pushing.

There's a lot of things you never see him do. After that first night, you never see him sleep. You know you've taken over his bed, but he never made any move to kick you out, and you're not about to offer to sleep on the floor, so you take it. You figure he must sleep underwater, since his hair is always damp when you wake up and find him sitting at his desk, reading or pouring over sheafs of paper (you still don't understand how he gets these things in to the Pocket without getting them soaked, since he always comes and goes when you're sleeping or otherwise unaware).

In the entire time you've been there, you haven't left the room you share with him. At first, you were weary to do anything at all, since he flipped right the fuck out whenever you did basically anything, but when you discover that the books he keeps in his room are largely in English and he finds you curled up in bed with one of them, he just nods in what you assume is approval, and you've scarcely been without one since. You were never a big reader before, but it would be just dumb to have computers underwater, so you spend your days leafing through his history texts and books of fairy tales. You're pretty sure he likes it because it means you're not asking him a thousand questions and are instead finding things out for yourself.

One day after he's disappeared down through the water you know leads out of the Pocket, you're perched at his desk, idly flipping through what you assume is a government textbook when your attention is drawn by the splashing sound of someone coming up for air. You turn, because the dumbass must have forgotten something, but the dark haired person floating half-in and half-out of the water and looking back at you is most certainly not Eridan.

You assume it's a girl, although you can't see any visible breasts. Her body is long and lanky, her skin decidedly pink (not the human flesh colored pink, but ballerina pink) with darker magenta markings curling across her cheeks and around her eyes. She lacks the facial fins Eridan has, but her ears are long, almost four inches, and frilled along the bottom. Her fingers aren't webbed all the way to the tips like Eridan's either, and her forearms have fins with the same frilled accentuation as her ears. The colorless dress she's wearing must be made of the same waterproof material as Eridan's pants, and several necklaces of tiny pink shells hang about her neck, and a matching circlet sets daintily against her forehead. She's absolutely stunning, and she's staring at you like you're the most interesting thing on the planet.

"I'm so sorry!" she says when she snaps out of whatever trance he'd put her in, looking considerably embarrassed. "I just- I didn't know Eridan had a human! There's been rumors, but." She interrupts herself, smiling at him. "I'm Feferi. What's your name?"

You hate how long it takes to beat your lisp in to submission long enough to answer, "Sollux. You're the firtht perthon I've theen bethideth Eridan."

She comes the rest of the way out of the water, shaking herself and ringing the water from her long, curled hair like someone who had a lot of practice getting in and out of water on an hourly basis (which she probably did). You can see her gills through slits in her dress, and they're feathery like her ears and arm fins, and you wonder how they don't tickle her something awful. "I bet he hasn't even thought to take you out, has he?" she clucks, shaking the water from her shell necklaces.

You shrug, running your finger up and down the pages of the book in front of you. "Haven't athked." You know the palace is big, from schematics you've found in one of his books, but you're unsure if there's a way to get to the rest of the Pockets without having to get drowned again. "I don't really want to go back out the way I came in."

She laughs, and it sounds like bells tinkling. "Silly, there's other ways to get in and out! How else would Eridan be able to get anything down here?" Before you can tell her that yes, you know that, you're not fucking stupid, but she's walked over to the bookshelf and gives it a mighty shove, and _damn_ that girl is deceptively strong. She reveals a small nook where a ladder disappears up and out of sight.

"Mother fucker," you swear, and try not to get too frustrated with yourself. There's no way you could move that heavy driftwood bookshelf, especially full. Damn fish people and their abnormal strength. She doesn't look like she'd be able to carry her own books to class, but I guess that teaches you not to judge books by their cover. "Thoulda figured it wath thomthing like that."

"Wanna come up with me?" she asks with a brilliant smile, and you'd be a crook to refuse her.

"What were you doing down here anywayth?" you ask, starting up the ladder first, because it would be just rude to follow after her and look up her skirt. You have a sneaking suspicion that the fish people don't have underwear, considering Eridan just gawked at you when you asked for a pair.

"Oh, my mom wanted to talk to him, but I sent Equius out to look to, so he can take care of it," she says, and you can hear a frown in her voice. You wonder why Eridan hadn't mentioned her before, or introduced you, or hell even let you out of the room, but you hit your head on something, and you hear Feferi laughing beneath you. "Just push on it, it should flip open."

You do, and when you scramble out in to the little alcove, you're looking out on a massive hallway, and it's so much larger than what you were expecting that Feferi has to push you out of the way to climb out, a proud smile on her face as you look at the colorful people walking up and down the way, which doesn't end in either direction as far as you can tell.

"Welcome to the Main Concourse," she says, and there are vendors peddling their wears, big doors made of driftwood and colored glass and even different colored coral cobbled together littering the hall, and there's something in little glass spheres dangling high above your heads in what is very similar to chandeliers, and you realize with a bit of a shock that they're schools of brightly glowing fish which serve to light the Concourse.

"It'th amathing," you say, and you mean it. She grins, grabbing one of your hands, and although the webbing prevents her from twining your fingers together, she holds tight.

"Want to see my cuttlefish?" she asks, and when you nod, she starts down the hall, practically skipping as you lag behind, trying to take everything in. The vendors have everything from fish to fruits and vegetables and clothes and weapons and jewelry and so much more, you could probably get anything you ever needed from here.

And the people. You didn't realize that the sea dweller population was so huge, and in such a variety of colors. The people you see are all much brighter colored than the dull grey-purple Eridan is, and you also begin to notice that everyone looks like Feferi, and no one looks like your captor. You thought maybe the horns were a boy thing, but all the men you pass have the long ear frills like your tour guide, and you find yourself wondering why the hell he looks so different. You see a few humans, usually accompanying a sea dweller, so you wonder why everyone is watching you walk by. They're also inclining their heads in your direction. A couple of men you assume to be something like guards bow.

"Are you a printheth?" you ask, and although you feel stupid for asking, your gaze falls on the pretty little circlet that stands out so vividly against her dark hair. It would make sense.

"Something like that," she giggles, and you wonder if you really should be holding her hand.

A familiar annoyed, rough voice drifts to your ears, and although you can't make out what he's saying, you're looking for the speaker. He sticks out like a sore thumb, and there's a pretty darker green colored girl at his elbow, not even coming up to his shoulders, with blue shells in her wild, dark hair. She appears to be leading him somewhere, and she's chattering a mile a minute, and he's mostly ignoring her for the papers in his hands. Rings glitter on his fingers, and his chest is covered for the first time that you can remember, wrapped in something that reminds you of a robe, but it barely falls past his hips and it's a lot more elegant than the terrycloth monstrosity the word "robe" makes you think of.

Feferi is following your gaze, and there's something discontent in the downward curl of her lips, and you start to ask what's wrong, but Eridan has looked up from his papers and those deep purple eyes are boring in to yours, and damn that guy has a thousand yard stare. The way he's looking at you makes you feel like you shouldn't be out here, but that feeling makes you mad, so you sneer and give Feferi a gentle nudge forward which is enough to get her moving again. You can feel his eyes on your back as you continue down the Concourse, and your thoughts linger on how uncomfortably warm the weight of his stare makes you feel.

Feferi doesn't bother to move the bookshelf back when she drops you off at the Pocket at the end of the day. It's still hours later when Eridan comes back, and he doesn't put it back either. Since the gig is up, he probably figures there's no point in blocking it off or hiding it. He's carrying a plate of vegetables only, which you know he only does when he's displeased, and you vacate his desk and take the plate even though you're really only going to pick. Feferi had gotten you one of everything that you so much as looked twice at, and you're stuffed.

The robe is gone, but the rings are still on his fingers, and he meticulously pulls each one off, and you're a bit put-out to say that there was something really sexy and elegant about his bejeweled fingers. The last one that comes off looks to be made of silver, with a large purple stone on it, and he holds it out towards you. "Unless you havve a token, you can' wwalk around outside by yourself. Don' take it off, and if anyone gives you trouble, just flash it and they should leave you alone. Don' purposefully get in trouble, though, cause they'll bring you straight to me."

It's the closest he'll probably ever get to giving you permission to walk around as you please, so you accept the ring, and it fits a bit loosely on your middle finger, and the slit that runs up the middle opposite the jewel feels weird on your skin because it was made for him to wear around his webbed fingers, but you're not enough of a tool to wear it on your thumb, so there it stays. It's heavy, and still warm from where it's been on his hand all day, and you stuff down a smile at the thought. You mean to thank him, but instead "why don't you look like everyone elthe?" comes out.

Instead of tensing and shouting and swearing like you figured he would, he just looks back at you, and there's a tiredness in his eyes that you hadn't noticed before. "I'm from the north, in the arctic," he says eventually. "I came here with one of the trade caravvans, on behalf of my parents. It's customary for the first born male in our royal line to be sent here to wwed the future empress. Our particular flavvor of sea dweller is a bit more primitivve, made for fightin' and survivin' the winter instead of lookin' pretty."

"So you and Feferi are-"

"-engaged," he finished, and he doesn't look as happy as you figured someone would at being engaged to someone so gorgeous. "In our societies, the empress holds all the sway, not the emperor. I understand that it's the reverse in your society."

"You two don't theem like you get along."

He fixes you with a withering look, and he's leaning his head on one of his hands. "Wwe havve different political ideas, and she's a terrible optimist while I'm a horrible pessimist. Wwe get along better than past ruling couples have, but that doesn' mean she likes me."

"But you like her?"

"Wwell enough." Something tells you that it's a little more than "wwell enough", but this is one of the things you don't think it would be wise to push. So you eat as many of the vegetables as you can and watch him, a bit more slumped than usual, while he pretends to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having a lot of fun designing and exploring the differences between the species. So far, we've only seen two: the southern sea dwellers, who are fish-like, and Eridan who is a northern sea dweller, who is more mammalian. If anyone is interested in seeing sketches and ideas and what-have-you from this series, follow the link to [my tumblr](http://solarstory.tumblr.com/tagged/oceanic%20acculturation). Everything is tagged "Resuscitate Me, Baby" (the story title) and "Oceanic Acculturation" (the title of the series/universe).


	4. Chapter Four

You spend your days wandering the Concourse, but you're seldom alone. Feferi is almost always with you, and you worry that this is cutting in to her duty as empress-to-be, but she just laughs and assures you that she has all the time in the world. She teaches you how to care for the cuttlefish, how to tickle the squids until they squirt their ink and catch it in a little bowl, how to climb up in to the rafters to feed the glowing fish in the chandelier orbs. She even takes you to the nurseries, where brightly colored see-through eggs sit in baskets, little tadpole-like creatures swimming around within and watching you with big black eyes.

The two of you are occasionally joined by Nepeta, the blue-shell wild-haired girl you saw with Eridan, or Equius, who is the biggest sea dweller you've ever seen. Sometimes Kanaya, who you found out helped save you, comes to fuss at Feferi and occasionally escorts you when her mistress can't. But most of the time, it's just you and Fef, and the more you see of her, the less you see of Eridan.

When you do see him, he's quiet, reluctant to talk to you, and after a couple days of you staying out until late, he stops bringing dinner back to the Pocket for you. You usually eat with Feferi anyways, but something about not seeing a plate waiting for you on the bed makes your stomach clench a little. You're not sure why he's suddenly so distant, but you suspect it might be jealousy. Whether he's jealous of you or Feferi, though, is not clear.

The faint circles under his eyes have become dark smudges, and he's restless when he's in the Pocket. Even if you aren't asleep, he tends to slip away, spending his time in what you assume is his permanent bedroom beneath the water. When you ask Feferi about it, she just laughs, patting your shoulder gently and a bit sympathetically.

"He's always been moody," she says with a sigh. "I try to cheer him up as best I can, but it never seems to work. He's such a mister grumpy gills! Don't worry about it so much, Sollux."

"I mean, yeah, he can be kind of a thtick-in-the-mud, but he theemth deprethed," you say, and you're unhappy about how hung up on this you are. Eridan is stern and grumpy and constantly annoyed, but he's not even really moping, he just seems….done. Resigned.

"Maybe it's because you're spending so much time with me," Feferi says, dipping her hands in to one of the small pools to pull a cuttlefish out. "He gets kind of upset when I steal his friends. It's not like I do it on purpose," she says hurriedly, "but people say I'm more easy to relate to and just more fun to be around. He's so foreign looking, and he has a bad habit of pushing people away with his attitude."

She says this like it happens all the time, like Nepeta and maybe other people you've talked to in the Concourse like the blind girl who flicks her tongue out like a lizard have been scared or stolen away from him too, and you're quiet as you accept the cuttlefish from her. You make sure to go back early that evening, and Eridan looks a little surprised to see you already there, sitting on the bed with a book of horror stories that Feferi gave you earlier that day. "I'm sorry," you say as he seats himself at his desk, and he looks at you like he's not sure what to make of your statement.

But then a splash draws his attention, and the tiny pinkish cuttlefish that Feferi had put in your care earlier peers at him, and Eridan looks completely gobsmacked. "She wouldn't take no for an answer," you say a bit sheepishly, and then he starts to laugh, and your heart is in your throat.

His face is more relaxed than you've seen it since you met Feferi, and the corners of his eyes wrinkle and the fins on his face quiver just slightly, and the ring on your finger is suddenly a more noticeable weight. "Can I touch your gillth?"

His laughter chokes in his throat, and his gaze is cautious, but you're not faced with the instant refusal you'd expected. "Why don' you ask Fef if you can touch hers?"

"I don't want to touch herth." Feferi's gills are feathery and delicate looking, just like she is, but aside from your initial surprise, you don't find yourself preoccupied with them. Eridan's look like purple gashes in his side, painful and raw, and more than anything you want to know what they feel like.

He's eyeing you, and for as easy as he can be to read, right now you might as well be sitting in the dark, because you can't for the life of you figure out what he's thinking. His face is blank but for a slight frown, but that could mean a million different things; he always frowns. "The last time you got near 'em, you scratched 'em up pretty bad," he says wearily.

"I know."

He's still looking at you, just looking at you, and your stomach is flipping around like an out of control airplane, because Eridan has the most intense pair of eyes you've ever seen on another being. "Just be careful," he says, and his voice is rougher than usual, eyes shuttering closed as he leans forward to rest his elbows on the table, head in his hands, hidden from you and yet terribly exposed.

You approach cautiously, and when you squat next to his seat at the desk, you can feel the warmth radiating off him, and it's hard not to burry your always-cold nose against his chest, but you're pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate that. So instead, you focus on the gills, which are even with your face now, and you can see them open and close ever so slightly as he breaths. The top-most gill is hidden by his bicep, but your fingertips find their way to the second one, and you feel like you should be able to see his ribs through them, but you can't, and his skin is a lot smoother than you thought it would be.

His skin feels thick, a lot thicker than yours, and his breath is coming just a little faster as you run your fingers across the length of it, before moving around to the next one. Your fingers are just above the edge of the gills, because you're afraid of doing something wrong, but you can feel his blood thrumming through his veins under your fingers, and it's exhilarating, and he's trembling slightly by the time you trace your way over the last one.

He seems so raw, so open, that it's like there's shards of glass caught in your throat. Eridan is bigger than you, stronger than you, faster than you, but right now you feel like he could just fall apart under the slightest touch. It's more trust than you deserve to have. Gently, you run your forefinger over the ridge of the bottommost gill, trying not to let your touch dip inside, and he shudders, _hard_.

"Are you okay?"

He swallows, and you can see his adam's apple bob, which fills you with an almost overwhelming desire to bite it. "Yes," he says, and it comes out as a whisper, and you can see a heavy blush working its way down the back of his neck. When you repeat the motion, his breath catches in his throat, and the gill pushes slightly against your finger, and you're harder than you've ever been in your life, straining against your pants.

It's too much, and you feel dizzy, and if he makes any more noises you're going to make a mess like the overeager teenager you are, and you don't even know what kind of junk sea dwellers are packing or if these are normal reactions to be having or _anything_. Against your better judgement, you lean forward to press your lips to the gill you were stroking, open-mouthed and moist, and he makes a small, strangled sound that has you fighting not to just throw him on the ground. His gaze is lidded when you stand, and he looks so damn _needy_ you feel almost like you're doing something wrong by moving away.

"You don't have to leave at night, y'know," you say, softly.

And you're not sure if he believes your words, but as you watch the faint blue glow wavering against the wall as you lay in bed that night and you feel a warm body slip under the blanket with you, something tight loosens in your throat, and webbed fingers stroking gently against your stomach lull you to sleep better than anything else ever has.


	5. Chapter Five

You learn a lot about the two of them over the next couple weeks as you divide your time more evenly between your fish friends. Feferi and Eridan don't dislike each other as much as you're initially lead to believe; the few times you've been out in the Concourse with Nepeta or Kanaya and you see them together, Feferi is laughing and carrying on like she always does, and Eridan has the softest, fond little smile on his face that makes you the tiniest bit jealous. "He's a glubbing asshole, but he's still my fiance, and my friend," she huffs when you ask her about it.

They don't get along because as they grow in to their political duties, it becomes more and more obvious how different they are. Feferi is progressive and optimistic; she wants to focus all her energy on destroying the barrier that separates the upper class and the lower class and making everyone equal. Eridan is more practical and conservative, a "don't rock the boat" kind of guy. He reasons that the divide is a necessary evil, and that instead of trying to destroy the divide, work should go in to bringing the quality of living up in general, and that their focus as leaders should be for the betterment and improvement of _all_ peoples, even if that means the lower class staying the lower class.

And really, Sollux can see both sides, because while Feferi's ideas fill him with a sort of nervous excitement, Eridan's really do make a lot more economical and socio-political sense. But Feferi is the empress, a vibrant and beautiful young woman, and Eridan is a cold, surly foreigner. Everyone flocks to her and her ideas, and people expect her to control him, and be able to shut him up, so although it strains her relationship with him, she tells them she has no right to control his thoughts, even if they don't mesh with her own.

You learn that Eridan used to be madly in love with her, and you suppose part of him still is. They're still trying to rebuild their friendship after he told her his feelings and was ultimately rejected. Just because they're engaged, she didn't feel like she had to love him, and so she didn't. Neither of them knew where to go from there, leaving things awkward and uncomfortable, but at least they're getting better now.

You learn that the ring Eridan gave you can get you just about anything you want, and it's hard not to take advantage of it. Even though she's the empress and she could have anything she wants with a glance, you still get her a stuffed cuttlefish from a toy vendor one day, and Kanaya reports that she sleeps with it every night. You try so many different kinds of foods that you're unsure if there were even this many ethnicities on the surface, and you finally find out the reason Eridan doesn't eat around you; he just swallows his fish whole. It's not the most attractive sight, and he just about clocks you in the face when Feferi and yourself walk in to the lunch counter where's eating, but after that incident, he makes a point to join the two of you for dinner.

You learn that Eridan has a lot of weird character quirks that you'd never paid attention to before now. He cracks his knuckles and grits his teeth when he's anxious, and his handwriting is terrible to the point that you start copying his memos so Nepeta (who you find out is like his personal assistant) doesn't have to strain so hard to read them. He pretends like he doesn't notice, and although you may be imagining it, he seems to try a little harder to make his handwriting legible to you. You learn that he always sleeps on his side and likes to rest his hand on your stomach when he sleeps, which makes it easy to tell when he has nightmares.

You learn that he's an early riser, but doesn't ever get out of bed before you're awake, and his voice, still heavy with sleep, is almost always the first thing you hear in the morning, and you love it, even though most of the time he's telling you to feed the damn cuttlefish. You never thought you would enjoy sharing a bed with someone so much, because you tend to toss and turn, but something about having his chest pressed to your back, feeling his heart beating and the gentle ruffle of his breath against your hair that puts you out like a light.

You haven't tried to touch him since you basically fingered his gills, but not for lack of desire. It's impossible to _not_ be aroused when his body is so close to yours every night, and you fit perfectly against him except for one thing. That one thing is why you haven't made any move to touch him since. When he's pressed flush against you, you don't feel anything pressing against your ass. He doesn't have a penis.

The initial reaction is that you're snuggling in bed with a giant Ken doll, but then your cultural sensitivity kicks in and you figure he's just a eunuch. And if he doesn't have the parts, isn't it a bit mean to get him wound up and turned on when he doesn't have a way to get off? Although it means you spend your nights aroused before finally going to sleep, you can't in good consciousness come on to him when he doesn't have anything to get out of it.

That is, until you wake up one evening and can feel something decidedly hard and _there_ pressing against the back of your thigh, and it's only your grogginess that keeps you from just sticking a hand down his pants to figure out what the hell is going on. But his hand is tight against your hip, and you can feel his lips against the back of your neck, and the only move you want to make is to roll your hips back against him, and the shuddery sigh you get in reward makes your toes curl.

You're not sure how asleep he is, but he presses back, and there's something almost lazy about the way you push and slide against each other, something comfortable and easy that makes you half wish he wouldn't wake up, because when he does, he's probably going to fly off the handle. But the feel of him wanting you, responding to you, is so intoxicating that you're positive you couldn't ignore him even if you wanted to.

The movement of his hips comes to a stop, his hand slides against your body in confusion, and you hear him stop breathing. You can barely feel his gills expand, expecting water at the cessation of his lung functions, but none comes. You roll over, and in the faint blue light of the coral, you can see his eyes are wide, a panicked look upon his face, and he's so beautiful with his hair mussed and cheeks flushed like they are. One of your hands moving up to gently grasp the fin on the side of his face in what you hope is a comforting touch, and he leans in to it. You think you're in control of yourself until he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, biting gently, and you're gone, pulling him towards you to claim that lip for yourself.

He's warm, damnably warm as always, and his teeth are sharp little pinpricks against your lips, but they're easy enough to avoid, and he tastes like salt and smells like seaweed and as he completely takes over your senses you're helpless but to moan in to the kiss. You're trying to pull him closer, but his lower half seems determined to elude you, so you find his gills with your fingers and his hips jerk forward so suddenly it would have startled you if it didn't feel so good.

His tongue is brushing against yours, tentative, but still there. His hands grasp at your back, fingers tightening erratically every time you stroke your tongue against his. Soft "mm"s and "ah"s slip from between his lips as you rock against him, twining your legs together.

He jerks out of the lip lock when your fingers tentatively rub against the underside of his gills, and he's definitely breathing harder than you now (not by much, because god he's hot right now), eyes squeezed shut and head bowed. You push up a bit when you stroke, and the moan that escapes him might be unintelligible or something that sounds suspiciously like your name, but you're not paying attention. You're moving down his body to run your tongue over the first gill you encounter, and his entire body is tense and trembling, a low groan escaping his throat.

"Sol-" You repeat the action, and his hips snap up, almost hitting you in the chin, so you wrap your fingers around him while you make a wet path up to the next gill, and he's starting to squirm, gasping with each breath. It's easy to slip your hand inside his pants, and you look up, able to barely make out his eyes in the darkness, and they're smoldering.

He's thinner than you imagined, and longer too, but completely smooth and sleek like the rest of his body is, and as your fingers glide up the length of him easily, you think this is probably the first dick you've ever thought was "pretty". Dimly, you're aware that he's trying to pull you back up, so with one last flick of your tongue, you slide against him until you're face to face again and there's a hand down _your_ pants as well.

You know his nails are sharp, but they stay well away from your dick, so all you care about is how warm and soft his hands are, and there's a silky-soft material brushing against you, and it has to be the webbing between his fingers, and you kiss him like your life depended on it, because if you didn't find an outlet for the feelings tearing through you, you're pretty sure you're going to explode.

Eridan doesn't seem as fascinated by the difference in your genitalia as you were; he's more interested in figuring out how to get as many noises out of you as he can. His strokes are precise, firmer at the base, and he rubs the head with his palm in a way that has you unable to bite back your moans. You're trembling, and so is he, pressed as close together as you possibly can be with two hands working between your bodies.

It's not a surprise that you come first, since you've been so frustrated over the past few weeks you can't even see straight, and you can feel his eyes on you as you shudder and writhe and cry out with the intensity of it. Through the pleasure-induced haze that has clouded your senses, you redouble your efforts, bringing your lips to the fin closest to you, kissing and licking. When you sink your teeth in to the delicate flesh (just slightly), he lets out a sound that is something like a low growl and a groan, and you milk him for every drop he has in his body.

You both lay there in the dark, trembling and panting and looking at each other, and despite the mess you've both made of your clothes, it's easy to tell that neither of you want to be the one to get out of the bed. So instead you slip your hand around to rest on the small of his back, reaching to gently touch one of the gills on the other side. He curls you under his chin with something that sounds suspiciously like a purr, his unsoiled hand tangling in your hair, the other resting against your hip, thumb gently stroking against your pelvic bone. You know he can tell you're smiling against his chest, but you don't give two shits; you've never felt so content before in your life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have mentioned in my past notes that Eridan is based loosely on a mammalian sea animal, such as a dolphin. Since his species is more geared towards fighting, it wouldn't make sense for their genitalia to hang outside their body, so I gave him a dolphin's reproductive system. His penis isn't as long as a dolphin's, nor is it prehensile, but it does retreat back in to his body when he's not aroused.


	6. Chapter Six

You are ERIDAN AMPORA and you're kind of sick of shirts.

Torso coverings are something usually limited to females and high class males, and even then they aren't worn all the time. With the freedom to walk around bare chested, most of the humans forgo the restrictive articles, especially with how temperate the Concourse is year-round. But in the months he's been below the surface, you have yet to see Sollux without said offending article. Even though you've become rather intimate with him, you still haven't seen his bare body, and it bugs the crap out of you.

Part of you feels entitled to at least see him without his top on, because he sees you more without one than with one. You're in and out of the water so often it would just be silly to wear one unless you're seeing the Condesce or appearing in court, and you're not so oblivious that you don't see him watching you out of the corner of his eyes when you come up from the lower levels, shiny and dripping wet.

Of course, you're just using this sense of entitlement to deflect the fact that you're so smitten you can't even see straight, and you really want to see what he looks like under there. From the nights spent curled up against his back, you can tell he's not as skinny as he was when he first arrived, and there's a modest curve to his stomach that you actually kind of like. He's a lot nicer to touch and stroke when his shoulder isn't jutting painfully in to your sternum, and the way you can't keep your hands off each other would be a sure-fire way to communicate to him that you're very attracted to him. At least, you'd think so.

Sure, you still call him a bonefish and he calls you a toad, but Nepeta says they're practically pet names so why even pretend like they're supposed to be insults anymore. As you sit in your office, tapping your pencil against your memo pad, you can't help but wonder if he really is a squishy little sea sponge under the tough exterior and you're really hurting his feelings or something like that.

"Fef, d'ya think he's hiden' something' from me?"

The pink skinned girl looks up from the map spread out in front of her, the wrinkles between her eyes easing when her focus shifts. "Who, Sollux? What could he hide from you? I mean, he lives with you and spends all his time with one of us."

You crack your knuckles, the rings pressing against your palms in a somewhat uncomfortable way. "Wwell, that's wwhy I wwas askin' you first."

Feferi giggled, putting a small yellow shell on a small island towards the edge of the map. "I mean, he doesn't really talk much about…anything. He'd rather listen to me talk, and whenever I ask him about you he just gets really red and flustered and changes the subject."

You duck your head to hide your smile. "But nothin' else that strikes you as strange?"

"Well, he won't talk to me about his family," Feferi says, and those wrinkles are back, and she's stopped fiddling with the map and the shells to scowl at her knees. "I've tried to broach the subject a few times, but he's very…closed off about it. I mean, I figured it would be something he wouldn't talk to you about since you snatched him and all, but he doesn't want to talk to _me_."

She sounds personally affronted by this, and it makes you snicker. "Fef, he's not gonna tell you every-fin."

"I know," Feferi huffs. "But it's family. It shouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, my mom's kind of crazy and you never really knew your parents but like…we still talk about it and stuff. Why won't he talk to me?"

You sigh, running your fingers through your hair and shrugging your shoulders. "I dunno. I'll talk to him about it tonight, though."

Something about it settles wrong in your stomach, and you're unreasonably nervous when you surface in your Pocket that evening. There's a large slice guava chiffon cake on the bedside table, and his skin is flushed, speaking of time spent in one of the hot mineral springs close to the surface of the water. His toes are curled in the thick fibers of your favorite blanket, and there's an ancient book on the island's history balanced on his knees, and you're overcome with such a terrible fondness that you're mildly disgusted at yourself.

But the feeling overwhelms your issues with turning in to some sort of lovesick idiot, so you sit on the edge of the bed and pull his feet in to your lap, and he scowls harmlessly at the water dripping on to his warm skin.

"You're cold, thtupid," he says without any real anger, but on principal you lick the arch of his foot which has him sputtering angrily and nearly kicking you in the face.

"You knoww, you nevver really told me anythin' about wwhere I snatched you from," you say, and he stops squirming around and kind of tenses up. He looks apprehensive, probably a lot like the way you did the first time he asked to touch your gills, and you start to wonder if maybe you shouldn't have asked.

"Didn't think you cared," he says haughtily, and it's probably the best way he has to get out of it, because you always act so aloof and above all this stupid emotion shit that as soon as you start pushing you're going to make an ass of yourself. But damn it, he knows about you being shipped off like a bucket of choice mackerel and how you spent most of your childhood drawing markings on your face with cheap paint from the Concourse so you could fit in, and you want to know about him too.

"Do you really think I wwould put up wwith you if I didn't?" you say, and you're quite proud that your voice doesn't waver at all.

He sighs, flexing his toes in your grip and leaning back more fully against the pillows, and maybe it's just from the hot bath, but there's a slight flush to his cheeks. "Thit, it'th juththt another thob thtory, didn't want to bore your royal highneth with it 'th all."

The look on your face tells him clear enough that an answer like that won't do, so he manages to look like the most put-out son of a bitch in the ocean when he continues. "My parenth were methed up. Mama wath thick and told me Dad wath never the thame when he came back from therving overtheas. I can probably count on one hand how many times I thaw him thober. After an incident at my elementary thchool when I wath in…fourth grade, I ended up in fothter care."

"Foster care?" You repeat, and although you know what the words mean, they don't make sense together, not the way he's using them. Southern sea dwellers lay eggs, and they all end up in the nursery where they're cared for by volunteers until they're old enough to feed themselves, and then they go back to their parents. Sometimes the parents don't take their children back, but they stay in the care of the nursery workers until they're old enough to go to school or start working. It's not something you'd consider "fostering". It takes a village to raise a child, regardless of whether that child has parents or not.

"Yeah, if a kid'th parenth don't take care of them or the parenth die or thomthing, then the kid getth thipped off to thomewhere elthe for another thet of parenth to take care of."

"Did your parents die or somethin'?" you ask, and there's a slight furrow to your brow which only deepens when his muttered reply is "I with".

"Wwell, you said if they don't take care of you, then you get taken awway, right? Wwhat'd they do? Or, wwell, maybe not do?"

You sit there in silence, letting his puny brain struggle with whatever thoughts are hounding him, his fingers tight on the cover of the book. Eventually, he pushes the cake out of the way with his book to make room for the monstrosity, reclaiming his feet from your hands to tuck them under his thighs. And as he pulls the shirt over his head, you're trying to figure out how the _hell_ these things are related, and then he's turning around to show you his back.

You're not really sure what you're looking at for the longest time. The skin is darker in little circular places along his shoulders and the back of his neck, some perfectly round and some oddly smeared. They're raised and scarred over, and they look old, but despite being able to asses this, you're not sure what could have caused them. Tentatively, you run a finger across one of the ones on his spine, and he doesn't flinch like you thought he might, but you can feel the muscles shift subtly under your fingers.

"My Dad thmoked two packth a day, uthually the thecond one when he wath drunk and pithted off about everything." You're still a bit confused, but you remember your basic history and culture classes saying something about how humans had a penchant for lighting dried plants on fire and inhaling the smoke, and it was so bizarre you immediately forgot everything about it.

"I got a ton of mud all over mythelf at thchool, and my teacher wath helping me find thomthing elthe to wear and thaw, and the retht ith hithtory. The fothter care parenth are nithe enough, but…didn't really ever fit in with any of them." He looks back at you, the defensive scowl on his face ruined by the vulnerability you can see in his eyes. "Thee, I'm tho pitiful, woe ith me."

You wrap your arms around his middle, pulling him to rest comfortably in your lap and leaned back against your chest, tucking your head against his shoulder despite how it presses your left fin in to his glasses. "That's it, really? Cod, I was beginin' to wonder if maybe you were actually a mass murderer or somefin'. I'm more upset that you were holdin' out on me for so long."

"I'm jutht uthed to keeping mythelf covered," he defends angrily, and you can feel his nose against your ear when he turns his head, almost like he was trying to hide in your hair. "It'th not exactly attractive."

You crane around enough to give him A Look. "Sol, I imagine gills an' fins an' wwebbed digits ain't exactly wwhat you humans would consider attractive. But you don't really give a shit, and I don't really give a shit, so no one gives a shit, so can wwe get over this nonsense?"

You sincerely hope he will, because his skin is a little paler under the shirt, and he's the first person besides yourself you've seen who has nipples, and even if his ribs still stick out a little and his collarbones could cut glass, you'd be really pissed not to be able to see this again. Because he's flawed, sure, but those little circular scars on his back are just one of the things that make Sollux Sollux, just like his lisp and sugar tooth and secret penchant for the bright blossoms from the island that always find their way on to your bedside table. He's beautiful, and you'll give anyone a bloody nose who tries to say differently, and that includes himself.

He twists suddenly, practically knocking you backwards with the vehemence of his kisses, his chest warm against yours, and you give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.


	7. Chapter Seven

You are SOLLUX CAPTOR and Feferi's mom kind of freaks you out.

The Condesce is very different from her daughter; so much so that if they didn't look almost exactly alike, you'd swear they weren't related at all. Feferi seems to have this inner glow, something warm and comforting and friendly that just pulls you in whether you like it or not. She's all soft curls and gentle curves and pink shells and bubbling laughter and everything anyone could ever want in a girl. And for all they look alike, everything about the Condesce is sharper, more angular. Her hair waves instead of curls, her dresses are sharp cut lines, and even the markings on her face are sharper.

Feferi assures you that her mother is kinder than she looks, but something about the way she looks at you when you have to stop and bow your head in the Concourse that makes your stomach clench up. You're a human, and certainly you're not royal friend material for her daughter, but the amount of ice in her already cool gaze since you started wearing Eridan's ring is alarming. But Nepeta and Feferi are positive that you're paranoid and she looks at all the humans like that, so you have no choice but to write it off as such.

You've only spoken to her once, and it was purely an accident. Nepeta had come to fetch you, claiming Eridan had called for you and wanted to take you somewhere for dinner, and she took you down a narrow little hallway that you'd never been before, dimly lit but still easily navigable. The office she led you in to was cluttered, smelling of old books and maps and that familiar salt and seaweed musk that you breath in deep every night to burn in to your memory.

Nepeta stops so suddenly that you almost bowl the smaller girl over, and her poorly muffled yip of pain has two heads snapping to look at the two of you.

Eridan is not the strongest sea dweller you've seen, but his stark difference from the colorful fish folk of the southern seas lends him a sort of ferocity that they just don't have. And although the Condesce is the same height as him, still pink and magenta and frilled like the rest of her species, she looks downright terrifying right now.

You've clearly interrupted some sort of altercation, because the Condesce has him by one of his horns and is in the process of hauling him straight up out of his chair. Although his teeth are bared, his eyes are huge and his pupils are just little pinpricks in the purple of his eyes. As soon as Nepeta alerts them to your presence, she's released him, and the anger in her face is so effortlessly gone that you're almost positive you imagined it.

"Nepeta, my dear, you must make sure Mister Ampora isn't otherwise occupied before you come in to his office," she says, and her voice is softer than you thought it would be, honeyed and sincere and sweet. "You may be interrupting something terribly important."

The girl nods so fast the shells in her hair click together, and the Condesce smiles ever so faintly at her, smoothing one of her elegant hands over the top of her head as she breezes past the two of you and out the door. Nepeta seems reassured by her words and the faint touch, regardless of how Eridan still looks a bit frazzled despite his best efforts.

He flat-out refuses to discuss anything about the encounter with you, saying "there's nofin' to discuss". You wonder if it's because he's embarrassed, but it's not like he can get in to a fist fight with the empress of an entire species, especially when you're betrothed to her daughter. But if he won't talk to you, you figure you can go for your third best option.

"It's strange for a member of the upper class to have a human," Kanaya says, smoothing the hem of her dress as she dangles her feet in the water of the Pocket, your cuttlefish (now dubbed Gl'bgolyb, which Feferi and Eridan find hilarious for some reason that they won't explain to you and you can't even say the damn name) swimming between her feet happily. "It's not that our species harbors a particular dislike for yours, but it's generally expected for people like Eridan and Feferi to spend their time conversing with members of the upper crust like themselves."

She kicks her feet idly, wiggling her toes and smiling when Gl'bgolyb wriggles back. "I…do not claim to know the inner workings of Her Imperious Condescension's mind, but I believe it would be unsightly for her daughter and future son-in-law to be spending so much time with a human. And since Eridan has a relationship of a more….adult nature with you, it would only serve to displease her further."

"But nothing has been said or done yet, so this is purely speculation on my part, but if I were you, I would do my best not to spend any time alone should trouble befall you due to these circumstances," she says, and turns to look at you, a worried frown gracing her lips. "I would hate to see something bad happen to you; I consider you to be a close companion."

You grin, bumping your shoulder against hers, and you mentally wonder why the person who's receiving all your affections is a selfish fish prince bastard and not one of the beautiful women who surround you. "It maketh me feel better to know you're looking out for me, Kanaya. You're a forthe to be reckoned with."

But as time passes, you see less and less of Her Imperious Bitchassness, and Kanaya's warnings slip to the back of your mind. Eridan doesn't appear as stressed, so you assume that there's been no more inappropriate horn grabbing, so what do you have to worry about?

Eridan has to go back out one evening, Nepta bursting out of the water with too much fanfare like she always does ever since she caught the two of you necking, claiming that the Condesce has called for both him and Feferi to come to her chambers immediately. He's a bit put out, obvious by the way you can still hear him bitching even after he's disappeared under the water. You resign yourself to an evening with your latest conquest (a positively antique copy of The Count of Monte Cristo that's more than a little water damaged, no surprise there) and the last of your mango jam.

But before you can get more than two chapters in, the water is rippling, and unless Eridan forgot something, he would have only just reached the Condesce's chambers, let alone go there, have a meeting, and come back. Your stomach clenches, but it's only Equius, the admittedly fearsome bodyguard that occasionally tails Feferi when she can't give him any other errands to run while the two of you are together.

His markings are heavy and black, especially around his eyes, but you've learned that he's quite harmless despite what his job description entails. He's almost always wet, which at first you just attributed to the time he spends working with the underwater guards, but Feferi tells you (giggling behind her hands the whole time) that he actually sweats a lot because he's always stressed out. You find it hard to take him seriously after that.

He's shaking himself dry, his thin hair clinging to his face and his lips which makes him grimace, and you go back to your reading. "If you're looking for Eridan, Nepeta already came to get him. Probably thomthing like twenty minuteth ago."

You think nothing about the knife strapped to his side, because he's a guard and guards need weapons to protect people. At least, not until it's buried in your chest.


	8. Chapter Eight

You are ERIDAN AMPORA and you just gave someone the worst beating of their life.

Despite all your talk, you're not a very violent person; if things can be solved through words, you'd much prefer to settle matters that way. But after Kanaya intercepted your little party and sent you rushing back to your Pocket, the scene before you could only draw one reaction out of you: unholy rage. The cuts and bruises on your fist are still raw, and Equius's eye is so swollen he can't see out of it, not to mention the mess that used to be his nose. But you don't really care about how that bastard is feeling, even if he was just doing what he was told (because he's always been the most obedient son of a bitch you've ever met), because Feferi is still crying quietly next to you and your hands are soaked in more blood than you ever thought they would be.

Kanaya stopped the bleeding as best she could, but every hour has him paler and paler, his breathing shallower and shallower, and his heartbeat slower and slower. After Nepeta pulled you off her beaten and bloody companion, you could barely see you were so enraged, and both you and Feferi were screaming at someone to _fucking do something_ because Sollux was laying there in a pool of his own blood, dripping grotesquely through the woven mat of your bed.

He hasn't woken once, and it bruises your _soul_ to think that you'll never feel him alive again; the comfortable warmth of his head against your chest when you lay in bed together, his hair stiff with seawater from the swim he'd taken earlier that day, his voice running over you like waves as he talks about nothing, his dichromatic eyes lidded as he looked up at you. He can't even grip your hand any more, and you're shaking so hard it's a miracle you can stand at all. You never meant for him to become so precious to you. That irritating, smart-mouthed human you snatched off the land and brought to your world below has suddenly become the most important being you know, slipping perfectly in to the place you've tried to fill with Feferi for so long.

"Wwe have to do something," you say, and your voice is wrecked, and Feferi grabs your bicep so tightly you're sure her fingernails are breaking the flesh but you don't care.

" _We_ can't do anything else," Kanaya says, looking just as bone-weary as you feel, but she hasn't shed a tear, not yet; she knows what little good she would be to Sollux if she were to lose her head, and you don't let her demeanor fool you in to thinking she cares nothing for the fragile human on your bed. "But our medicine is primitive."

"They could help him up there, couldn't they?" Feferi says, sounding lost but also the tiniest bit hopeful. "On the surface, the other humans could help him. They have better medicine than we do."

It makes your stomach roll violently, because it's still losing him, but could you really live with yourself knowing that he died when you still could have helped him? You think of his books and his smiles and his damn lisp and you know, you know that nothing would hurt as bad as watching him die while you do nothing.

"If he survvivves the trip," you say, and Kanaya is already wrapping him up because every second is precious, and you're terrified, because what if he _doesn't_ make it? "It's a long trip, even swwiming as fast as I can."

Feferi is clinging to your arm like a child, her tearstained face cool against your skin, and you can feel the belief there, the confidence, and her faith in you is staggering, because Sollux means just as much to her as he does to you. "Well, then you'll have to swim faster," she says.

And so you do. The water burns your gills and your shoulders scream in protest and your legs are jelly, but you can't slow down. His blood is warm against your back, and you can just barely feel his breath rustling the hair on the back of your neck, and it urges you through the water at a painful speed.

You don't return to the beach where you find him, because there's no guarantee anyone would be there. Instead, you go to were the houses are, some of them with small docks jutting out in to the water. All but one of the docks are deserted, the one blessedly close to you occupied by two figures. They look alike, one with long hair sitting with what you think is a sketchbook on her knees, the other playing with some little device in his hands. You don't bother to approach cautiously, you just jump up out of the water, practically sobbing for breath when you hit the wood, hard.

They're both running away from you, and you can't seem to make your lungs work, gasping for several seconds before you croak, " _Please_ , I need help."

The short haired one doesn't stop, but the long haired one does, her sketchbook falling from her fingers and her eyes huge behind her glasses as she takes in the sight of you, and she starts coming back when she sees the precious bundle on your back. She's not strong enough to lift him, and you're too exhausted, but between the two of you Sollux ends up on the dock.

The girl is yelling at the boy, something about "Grandpa" and a number that has no meaning to you, but he immediately takes off in to the house. The deck is old, and you wouldn't be surprised if the boards digging painfully in to your ribs just collapsed under your weight.

You still can't breath, and the sobs coming out of your mouth practically move you with their force, and you're babbling "please, please help him" when the girl reaches down and cups your face in her hands, fingers spreading to accommodate your fins. She looks scared, paper white and mouth slightly open, but her touch is gentle, and the words trickle off as she looks at you.

"I promise, I'll do absolutely everything I can to make sure he's okay," she says. She doesn't say anything else, or ask any questions about where you came from or what's going on. You go limp, the stress and grief finally overwhelming you as you sink back beneath the water, crying with relief and the knowledge that you'll never see him again but at least he's _safe_.

 

You are SOLLUX CAPTOR, and you wake up in the hospital, the ring on your finger the only thing to tell you that it wasn't a dream and that the pain gripping your heart isn't all in your head.


	9. Epilogue

Your name is ROSE LALONDE and you're not really sure how you're supposed to tackle the problem at hand.

It's been three years since your boss brought you "in to the loop", although you've found that you'd much rather have stayed out of it, considering you spend most of your time now working correspondance with a group of people no one really believes exists. Your mother knew about them, hinted about them your entire life, but you always wrote her words off as the ramblings of a drunk woman who spent too long working for the government. But then you graduated from university and landed a job with a certain Spades Slick (ridiculous name), and found yourself, literally, washed away in the culture and political dealings of fish people.

Your job is a delicate one, corresponding via snail mail (horribly impractical) with the empress and her consort, and it seems like the colony is about to change rulers in a not-so-usual way. Your man (rather woman) on the inside has been hinting at unease stirring among the common folk, and the recent attempted murder of a human living in the palace set the population in a uproar. The human was apparently the lover of the empress consort, and best friend to the empress herself. Your informant, her red ink slightly smeared in excitement, says that the empress already has a number of supporters who find her equality politics much more to their liking compared to the heavy hand of her mother, and it would be terribly easy to overthrow the Condesce.

You've never actually met any of these people (Slick says that you should thank your "lucky fucking stars" that you haven't), and the threat of a political upheaval is one that has little meaning to you. For all the research and reading you've done on these people, spending evenings in the archives with no one but Boxcars chain smoking and fetching tomes for you as you ask for them, you feel very detached and disconnected from them, even the empress-to-be that you correspond with.

"It's absolutely unprecedented," Slick says, his feet on his desk and his scowl set even deeper at your request.

Not a single hair on your head is out of place, and you smooth the purple pinstripe pleats of your skirt despite knowing that there isn't a crease to be found. You cross your ankles, fixing him with a look that has made lesser men turn tail and hide under the nearest car (some things you're grateful for your mother teaching you). "There's never been any sort of political dissonance in their recorded history. Feferi seems reasonable enough, but we have absolutely no idea how a revolution would affect the rest of the islands."

Slick pulls a stick of gum out of his desk drawer, smacking angrily (you liked it better when he smoked). "Look, Lalonde, we keep tabs on these people because the Big Guy tells us to. It's not our job to settle their political matters. When the founding fuckfaces first made contact with the sea suckers, they agreed to leave each other alone, and it's worked very well. Lots of girls and boys have been in your shoes before, and they haven't felt the need to intervene before."

You resist the urge to jiggle your foot, because Slick is like some tiny, angry shark who can sense fear or nerves and would happily devour you and find another "flighty broad" to take your job. But then again, Boxcars says you're the best that Slick has gotten landed with in twenty years, so it'll probably take more than a little pushing to get him to kill you. "My correspondant says that the consort is geting suspicious of all the activity taking place not far off the island."

That gives him pause. Kure Atoll is breathtaking, and as the tourism boom continues in Hawaii, land tycoons have turned their greedy eyes towards the island sanctuary, and some private investors have been sending boats out to scout the islands. The empress wouldn't have been thinking to keep an eye out for these sort of things, but her consort is weary, cautious, and quick to action. He's also in charge of the army of two entire species, one of which you have absolutely no contact with what-so-ever.

"They're just fish," he says eventually, but you don't miss the way his teeth grind on the cinnamon gum. "Really fucking smart fish, but just fish. If they try and start anything, those investors are going to clear them out like Thanksgiving leftovers."

Your brows lower as your lip twitches up ever so slightly. "Slick, you make it sound like you're very much alright with the total genocide of one, maybe two, groups of people. Groups of people you're sworn to protect."

He swings his feet down from the desk, leaning forward as if to get a better look at you, but your face is as impassive as it ever is. "Your mother told me you weren't going to get all _girly_ about this shit."

"Well, forgive me if the idea of possible genocide doesn't just tickle my tummy."

He flops back in his chair, smacking his gum loudly again, and you know you've got him. "So what, you want to just flounce over there and make sure everything is all hunky-dory, make sure this possible new empress isn't just going to try for global domination with her fishy friends and their pointy sticks?"

"That's my ultimate goal, despite how crassly that was put," you say, pursing your lips. "It would be nice to spend some time there to get a better feel for the culture, but not absolutely necessary."

"We could kill two birds with one stone," Slick says, starting to rummage through the piles of unorganized papers on his desk. "The board approved of your proposal to set up a new media station in the old army encampment on the island. You mentioned that it would be easier to correspond with the empress and have a better working relationship with the species in general if they had even a bit more modern technology. But despite how good you are at annoying the fuck out of everyone you meet with your psycho-bullshit, you're going to need someone to help you get that shit set up. Someone who's already got an idea of how things work down there."

If your mother hadn't been working for Slick before you, there's no way you would have gotten the job. The board is very selective about people who work for them, and it can take months, even years, to get the security clearance to even be allowed in to the offices, let alone on to Kure Atoll itself. You sit back with an unladylike huff, crossing your arms and glowering at your boss. "Well, where do you propose I find someone like that?"

Slick dumps a file unceremoniously in your lap, a picture of a teenage boy with glasses and messy hair stuck to the front with a paper clip. "Hawaii, of course."

Something niggles at the back of your mind, and you're positive you've heard of Sollux Captor somewhere before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is, ladies and gents. Recusitate Me, Baby is finally done. Don't worry, I will certainly be doing lots more with these characters, if the epilogue is any sort of hint. I can't even begin to thank everyone for the wonderful reviews and support and just...everything. I wasn't expecting much attention at all on this story, so I want everyone to know that I appreciate each and every last one of you, even those who don't leave kudos or comment or anything. I really hope you'll join me for the next adventure!


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